RIM's unsold inventory of BlackBerrys, PlayBooks swells to $1B value

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Comments

  • Reply 61 of 68
    gtrgtr Posts: 3,231member


    A billion dollars worth of RIM stock?


     


    I'd buy that for a dollar!!!


     


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  • Reply 62 of 68
    sailorpaulsailorpaul Posts: 322member


    I will not make light of someone else's misfortune, even though I started the very first Mac user group way back when and then continued to buy apple products through all the good and bad years.  I heard all the verbal abuse all along the way.


     


    The fault for this failure to perform and lack of leadership at RIM belongs to RIM's senior management, not the rank and file employees who will get hurt the most.   Every senior exec in the world should be asking themselves one question weekly -- what have I done to create a new product/solution so wonderful that it will cannibalize and eventually replace my existing products?   Boards of directors should be held accountable if they and senior management can not answer that question.

  • Reply 63 of 68
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    sailorpaul wrote: »
    I will not make light of someone else's misfortune, even though I started the very first Mac user group way back when and then continued to buy apple products through all the good and bad years.  I heard all the verbal abuse all along the way.

    The fault for this failure to perform and lack of leadership at RIM belongs to RIM's senior management, not the rank and file employees who will get hurt the most.   Every senior exec in the world should be asking themselves one question weekly -- what have I done to create a new product/solution so wonderful that it will cannibalize and eventually replace my existing products?   Boards of directors should be held accountable if they and senior management can not answer that question.

    Unfortunately, you know it doesn't work that way. While "C" level executives do get fired, if a company is screwed because of their decisions, or that of others, the company is still screwed. The company will falter and maybe fail. If that happens, people get fired. There's no other way.
  • Reply 64 of 68

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Hyram Gestan View Post


    I will never forgive RIM because they ridiculed the iPhone when it first came out.  I hope that they die.



    Did you design the iPhone? No, so why do you care? You are a truly sad fanboi. Sad.

  • Reply 65 of 68
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member


    Trolls trolling trolls… image

  • Reply 66 of 68
    jmgregory1jmgregory1 Posts: 474member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Apfeltosh View Post


    Did you design the iPhone? No, so why do you care? You are a truly sad fanboi. Sad.



    I don't forgive the RIM co-ceo's for their complete and utter stupidity and for their board to keep them in place as long as they did, and for both Wall Street and Washington DC for financially supporting them when it was clear they were just hanging onto their already old technology.


     


    And today, there are still companies, governments and financial institutions who just can't say no to using a BB, even in the face of better alternatives.  It's like what I hear from people who are dyed in the wool Chevrolet fans.  They bought the crap of a Cavalier for years, not because it was the best car out there, but because it was a Chevy.

  • Reply 67 of 68
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by haar View Post



    RIM should donate all of the used playbooks, to the university of waterloo, laurier, toronto... heck all of the canadian universities... maybe then they may be useful. (or become useful)... because the canadian taxpayers are ultimately going to pay for this inventory, thus the effectively lower taxes caused by the inventory write-down.. IMO.


     


    Actually, anyone getting free RIM stuff probably would have higher costs dealing with these obsolete products. Not to mention, the morale hit... "Geez, we're so impoverished they won't even give us free Android stuff. Wow, we really suck more than we thought we did."


     


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by aaarrrgggh View Post



    For a market cap of less than $6B... a $1B write-down is pretty huge. Given their PE is around 5 (call it a forward PE of 10)... it would seem like it is time for a turn-around specialist to come in.

    What could they do to become relevant again?


     


    There's no turnaround, as I mentioned in another thread, it's all "containment" now like in those post-apocalyptic movies. Go room-by-room purging everything with flame then retreat to a safe distance as the nuke is dropped.


     


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by melgross View Post





    Give me a break! So they say sales in Nigeria and Indonesia are doing well. Wow! That's certainly a measure of success. Let's see, smartphone penetration of all cellphone users in Nigeria is 5%, and RIM has half of that. So how many phones a year are sold in Nigeria? There are over 150 million people there. But a third, almost, are children. How many of the 100 million can actually afford to buy a phone, remembering that phones there aren't subsidized? What do we get, maybe 5 million phones sold a year? 10 million (doubtfully)?

    5% of 10 million is 500,000. RIM is said by some to have half of that. So they sold 250,000 phones there last year. Well, that's not much.

    They are in the red, as they lost money last quarter, and are expected to continue losing money for the foreseeable future. They make almost all their profits in developed countries, and most of that in N America.

    RIM is running out of time.


     


    RIM has some momentum in developing countries because it's the most affordable smartphone outside of iPhone (which is premium) and Samsung (which is now relatively premium and which has surpassed Blackberry). 


     


    The concern is that if sales are doing well in developing countries... Why do they have so much inventory? Something is up. When an infection spreads through the company, there's nothing left to do but take it out the back and shoot it. 


     


    I feel sorry for them on one level, but in my 10 years of work experience, I've seen companies and people of all trades do this to themselves. Karma is a ruthless but just bitch.

  • Reply 68 of 68
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by melgross View Post



    Unfortunately, you know it doesn't work that way. While "C" level executives do get fired, if a company is screwed because of their decisions, or that of others, the company is still screwed. The company will falter and maybe fail. If that happens, people get fired. There's no other way.


     


    It's the old way of business, and indeed, they reap what they sow. Boards and C-Level can prance from failure to failure, that's their karma to face.


     


    But for companies, it's pretty obvious nowadays how to succeed. That is, use common sense, listen to what customers want, and don't be arrogant pricks.


     


    Any company that doesn't do that, is simply doomed this century. They can be propped up for years or decades, but eventually, the walls will cave in.


     


    I'm a strong believer in small business enterprise, though you can get the other extreme - a mom and pop show where they also have no idea what they are doing.


     


    In the end, it's all about people. The right people can make anything happen, regardless of their "training", "education" or "skills" starting point.


     


    Steve Jobs was a great visionary, but he was able to corral a team of people the world has never seen since perhaps the Renaissance.

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